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Doomed by half-measures
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
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Mask mandate after mandate, lockdown after lockdown, we're being doomed by half measures.
Out, around Nelson, everyone doing the right thing. The required thing. Wear your mask into a crowded restaurant until you're sat, then take it off for an hour to visit.
Doctors, Nurses, protesting against getting a vaccine. How is this a thing? If you work in a hospital this should be a requirement - not debatable - just as during the great AIDS pandemic adult actors wore condoms or provided testing proof that they were HIV free. Yet Nurses, orderlies, etc. should be able to decide whether or not they get a vaccine?
Mother fuckers, your average porn star has more common sense than some of these loons.
Old folks homes, assisted care facilities - still reporting outbreaks amongst unvaccinated workers - HOW CAN YOU ALLOW AN UNVACCINATED VISITOR OR EMPLOYEE INTO THESE PLACES?
We are doomed.
Police in Toronto protesting mandatory Vaccines. They are civic employees - how is it a requirement you be vaccinated to go work remotely at Camps up North and yet the governments own employees are clamoring for a free pass?
And restaurants. The passport - demanding customers have vaccine passports - but what about the staff? And this is tricky - because - an awful lot of staff in restaurants haven't got their vaccine. Refuse to get it. For any number of reasons, the vast majority entirely stupid - but - if it were a requirement many restaurants - already short staffed - would be forced to close.
Every country reporting rising numbers, largely due to the unvaccinated spreading it, more and more breakthrough cases, vaccinated people getting it, subtle adaptations as it mutates, multiplies and spreads. We've allowed the stupid to speak to science as if their opinions were fact, as if they deserved an equal listen, as if common sense were political, an imposition on their freedoms, we're becoming victims of an excess of compassion, and this will drag on and on and on...
This is the pandemic without end.
Gender VS Taste
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 906
This in regards to my distaste for other peoples voiced sexual preferences and inclinations.
While I loathe to disagree with Conservatives on anything, in this they are right. There are only 2 genders. You are born either Male or Female. A sex change does not alter your birth gender. If you have a sex-change - for example from male to female - that does not give you the right to compete against women in the Olympics.
Now, to clarify - Gender is indeed a construct - from a social perspective - but there is no disputing that Men and Women are born different. The only exception or caveat I would qualify this with is in those - albeit very rare cases - where gender is uncertain and so assigned at birth by a Doctor, who gets it wrong.
Everything else is a matter of taste. You are a man who likes men? You're a Mr. You're a Man. You are a woman who likes women? Ms. or Mrs. You're a woman.
No additional pronouns or "Other" categories are needed.
The fact is - no matter what your taste or preferences, an excess of liberality has allowed us to "Gender" you based upon these preferences. This is first of all
A) Irrelevant
B) Wrong.
There are very few social situations in which I need or even desire to know your preferences. The vast majority of my friends and acquaintances I have no desire or inclination to sleep with. They don't need to know my preferences. For me to embarrass them with lurid embellishments of my sexual exploits or demand they conform to MY "NON-BINARY" (mis)Understanding of the world is as offensive as them demanding I listen to their exploits and conform to their expectations of the world.
Non-Binary is simply a means of assuming that your fluid tastes make you a far more colorful person than your neighbor. This may be true, taste is an idiosyncratic and peculiar thing, but as soon as you feel the need to elaborate upon it it also makes you a bore.
Now for a few words regarding "Gender".
There are 2 genders - which are described by an abundance of gender pronouns. Mr, Mrs, Miss, He, She, His, Hers, Etc. Not all cultures use them - for example Finnish, Estonian, Chinese, Etc. I will accept arguments against gender pronouns on the basis of a historical power imbalance - the patriarchy has embedded within language a deep seated power imbalance, that by implication prejudices the reader or hearer of the pronoun.
So, instead of creating more gender pronouns, create fewer. One. Accept people in personhood will be bigger step towards equality than creating a mass of pronouns to describe what should be regarded as a personal and intimate part of their lives. To emphasize any gender - or preference - makes it a bigger thing than it needs to be. No one - no whole person - should be defined by their taste in what is a relatively small and unimportant part of their lives and relationships with others. Therein lies true equality.
Last Week
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 1088
And here a summary rant of the events since last week.
The rave - after 2 years of restraint, much anticipated - tickets for the son and daughter - plane ticket for daughter to Calgary so they could drive down together - cancelled, last minute, on Monday - too many cases out here - 200 cases in 2 weeks, a full 2% of the population infected with the new Delta Variant.
So, no rave, but the plans been made and the kids will come down all the same.
The restaurant, now closed Tuesday and Wednesday - the owner has some campaigning to do with the newly called election. This will give her more time to do it.
Thursday - The owner's son - my colleague - and his wife - decide to make it a three day weekend. This despite his wife having had the past 10 days off. It's their sons birthday and they have yet another party to attend. So it's just me and Wigglesworth.
Wigglesworth, 18 years old, maybe 5'6"and 200 pounds, telling me the name of her boyfriend (Conan? Cory? Conrad? Why is she talking to me...), telling me she can't get the vaccine because she's allergic to them, bleah, bleah, bleah. I've heard it all before.
Wigglesworth is off at 4:00. I ask if she'd like to work later, we'll be busy, but no, she's scheduled until 4:00, she's working until 4:00, she has an appointment. Funny for someone so garrulous she doesn't elaborate on the appointment, but I can guess. Dairy Queen. She made cash tips and she's off to spend them.
So - Thursday night - the height of summer - and it's me on my own. The owner - husband of - is there to help me. In a muscle shirt and dirty jeans he can pour me a beer if I need it.
This is not the help I need. We've been short-staffed all summer, and now, with kids birthdays and Dairy Queen we're more short staffed than ever. I'm seriously pissed and he knows it. We're slammed - predictably, walk-ins of 6, 8, 12, and it's just me on my lonesome. There's no shorter, curter, ruder, abrupter waiter on Kootenay Lake. This is bullshit - the owner - he knows, he can tell how pissed I am, but the show must go in.
I survive, barely, the reputation of the restaurant - never fine - has doubtless taken a licking. I don't check the reviews but - given my temper - I doubt any were favorable.
***
Friday, Garage Sale at Ainsworth. I wake early, drive up, am amongst the first on the scene and I clean up. There's been a separate post on that. Work - the owner's son, he's apologizing to me with a flushed face - he didn't know I'd be on my own (Really? REALLY?) - he's been told, his dad gave him a talking to...
The day passes, another one down. I survive. At this point that is the sum of my ambition - live through the September long weekend and then just breathe.
Saturday - I open. An early day for me - I'm expecting the kids - but the night - all the staff are in - all the other staff - all the staff because I have taken the night off.
I laugh. If I'm working I can work by myself, if I take the night off they need the whole kit and caboodle to cover me.
***
The kids arrive - good to see them - how long's it been? A while. We go for dinner, and again. The indoor mask mandates have taken effect - you must wear a mask to your table before you can take it off. We're doomed. The restaurant, filled to the brim with unmasked diners, easily 50, 60 people, talking, breathing, and with a 2% infection rate you can bet that it's here. It's here. I watch the waiter, busy with 5 tables. 5 tables no more than 20 feet from the kitchen or bar. Busy with 5 tables no more than 20 feet from the kitchen or the bar and with a dedicated bartender and hostess.
I work in hell.
Sunday, recover from Saturday's excesses, the boy, the girl, they were no help whatsoever with that bottle of Vodka, had to kill it on my own, and Sunday I'm paying the price. The boy is as well, good to know he's a featherweight. We head up to the hot springs - I haven't been since the Pandemic began and they've only lately begun to open them to the general public.
Only there's an hour and a half wait to get into the Covid soup. And count the people in the pools, in the cave - We're doomed. Doomed by half-measures. We stand a bit, watch the line, we're not getting in. Upstairs to the restaurant for a disappointing lunch, try again to get into the pools but it's not happening. They've increased their prices - $15.00 admission (up from 9 or 10, I remember), and $5.00 for a towel rental - and these price increases are on the back of reduced service. They're cleaning up.
It's amazing this, do everything wrong and double your money. I'm in awe. Still - in another couple of weeks - after the September long - it'll be a lot safer - there'll be a fraction of the customers, most of whom will be locals, and there will be no waiting in line.
Sunday night - still recovering - we watch "Annette" with Adam Driver. I've covered that elsewhere.
And Monday, the kids are off, work again - Wigglesworth wants to know if she needs to bring a Doctors Note for why she can't get a vaccine, I have some great customers. Survive the day, survive the night - and there's only 2 weeks left. 2 weeks and the business will go over a cliff, there will be busy spells, for sure, but nothing like the summer, and my sanity will be slowly restored...
Manly P. Hall - Self Unfoldment
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 1230
And so I've begun reading Manly P. Hall's "Self Unfoldment", which is in the genre of New Age Self Help books, actually probably one of the first to pioneer the genre.
If you're unfamiliar with Manly P. Hall I'd suggest you read the Wiki here:
Link: Wikipedia on Manly P. Hall
And note his absolutely amazing photo.
Now - if you were too lazy to click on the link I'll briefly sum it up here: Manly P. Hall, one of the espousers of the Theosophist movement, formidably educated himself at a young age and distilled the essential "Truths" he discovered into a variety of books and manuals. Even if you've never heard of him, chances are you've been influenced by his thinking. I've wanted to read him for a long while and was lucky to finally find one of his books.
To read it - a pragmatic approach to spirituality tailored for western adepts, the disciplines it sets out for you - the changing of your thinking - refinement, evolution, etc. - is good. Nothing I didn't know, but he lays it out in plain speech, and it's interesting to see how at odds it is with the New Age movement, Vision Boards, Etc. - that evolved from it. His is, of course, the right path - the New Age movement that succeeded it is focused too much on the acquisition of useless things and external change, whereas his book focuses primarily on changing the reader from within.
I'm impressed, although I knew I would be, and he doesn't need my recommendation.
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